First affordable, mass-market fuel cell electric vehicles on market as early as 2017?

Left to right: Raj Nair, Group Vice President, Global Product Development, Ford, Prof. Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler, Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development and Mitsuhiko Yamashita, Member of the Board of Directors and Executive Vice President of Nissan

Car makers Daimler, Ford and Nissan have announced the signing of a three-way agreement for the development of a common fuel cell stack and fuel cell system for use in separately branded Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV). With each making an equal investment, the companies hope to have "the world’s first affordable, mass-market FCEVs" on sale by 2017.

This announcement is not only a statement of engineering intentions. In a press release, the three companies said that its purpose was also to send a message to governments and industries about the need to build more hydrogen refueling stations and infrastructure. This in itself is important because in the U.S. alone there are currently only ten refueling stations, and without adequate infrastructure hydrogen-powered vehicles would not be feasible.

The fuel cell system of the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL (above) compared to the current development status

The current Mercedes-Benz fuel cell

The current Mercedes-Benz fuel cell

The current Mercedes-Benz fuel cell

Left to right: Raj Nair, Group Vice President, Global Product Development, Ford, Prof. Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler, Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development and Mitsuhiko Yamashita, Member of the Board of Directors and Executive Vice President of Nissan

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